The Amazing Social Media Swindle

If you need any further evidence of the insane hysteria the marketing industry has created around social media marketing, a very clever bit of research from Nation's Restaurant News ought to do the trick.

The magazine asked consumers and restaurant operators parallel questions about their use of social media (specifically Facebook and Twitter.) As they say, "...what we found was nothing

Philosophy Or Donuts?

Several years ago, a very sincere guy who ran a chain of donut shops came to see me. He wanted to do an advertising campaign.

"We're different," he explained. "We're a commune. Everyone who works here owns an equal part. We work cooperatively. It's a model for how businesses should be run. It's a vision of the future. I think we should do an ad campaign about it. I think people will really

Unreasonable People

One of the things web publishers are going to have to get used to is human irrationality.

This can be seen in the worldwide fuss over Facebook, Google and privacy.

Apologists point out that people put their most intimate details on the web and then get all huffy when publishers like Facebook and Google provide access to this information. Isn't this complete hypocrisy, they say?

Darn right

A Whole Lot Of Nothing

We think we're important.

We think our problems are monumental.

We have massive frustrations and grievances.

So I thought a little perspective might help us all have a nicer weekend.

First of all, let's talk about this place we live in.

We call it the universe. We've all heard about the hundreds of billions of galaxies, each containing hundreds of billions of stars, each surrounded by who

Maniacs With Thin Skins

“He irritates the fuck out of me. He’s got carried away with his own scepticism about the internet and it’s become a self-fulfilling prophesy.” Another blogger, on the subject of yours truly.
The fun thing about being The Ad Contrarian is that it's my job is to stick my finger in the eye of conventional advertising wisdom.

Since conventional advertising wisdom is so, well, conventional, and

Why I Never Make Predictions

Diligent readers of this blog have probably noticed that the wily ol' Ad Contrarian almost never makes predictions.

The reason for this is simple: I hate looking like an idiot.

People who make predictions are almost always wrong, and usually wind up eating their words.

Here's a lovely case in point. I was going through some old stuff about the supposed "death of advertising" and came upon this

The Yellow And Brown Process

Clients love to believe that there is a method to the advertising madness.

A substantial component of success at winning new business these days is not about the effectiveness of the advertising you create, but how clever you are at contriving a plausible sounding process for developing your ideas.

There are processes for doing just about everything an agency does. But when it comes to